Well, having rejoined Freelancer Discovery, I have found a few issues...
All of these issues, while relatively small, impact the enjoyment people have of this game.
Of course, some also impact the Role-Playing aspect of the RP server.
1, The current setup of the game may discourage new players.
You start in a relatively crap ship, with little money, and no real legit way of making any.
Example: I started as Liberty Navy...
A, I couldn't do missions as the NPC's are way overpowered.
B, I couldn't really trade as I had little money to buy commodities and it would take ages to be able to have a full Cargo Hold.
C, NPC farming is difficult as all Navy enemies simply ignored me, which is also good as they are overpowered.
2, There seem to be no low-level missions anymore.
I found the lowest to be "level 3", available on Planet Manhattan.
The issue was it certainly wasn't level 3! Those ships blasted me to bits before I could even drop ones shield.
I then tried a (supposedly) "level 5" mission later (in a better ship with better guns) and was facing 8 Gunboats!
3, Wrecks/Loot hunting is now pointless
Heading into the Badlands, I came across the "Patrol 27" ships, so I looted them (hoping to make some money).
However, I noticed that the loot I gained from these ships is suddenly worth almost nothing.
Not only that, but it was pointless to USE them either, as they were WAY weaker than what I had.
Strangely, they are still Justice Mk III's, but not the same as the Justice Mk III's I was using....
4, Player interactions have gone a tad downhill.
Its very hard to Role-Play on a Role-Play server when others aren't really doing the same.
I have had several "interactions" with people playing as criminal factions who just shoot randomly at you for no reason.
These people also have much better ships/weapons/shields so you are no match for them.
What happened to the InRP rules for PvP combat? Am I really allowed to just randomly blast whoever I want, whenever I want?
5, Rule-breaking is confusing.
I have been told once or twice by other players that "X is against the rules for my character", despite the fact that they also break rules themselves.
Not only this, but the GAME rules also seem to have changed.
Why can't a Freelancer (clue in the name) basically fly ANY ship they want?
My Freelancer character got a lovely Corsair ship, with Corsair weapons, only to have his ship power nerfed due to "incompatibility" or something...? A Freelancer is a Freelancer, he should be able to fly ANYTHING.
6, Faction standing issues
I understand that when you kill one factions members, it angers them and pleases others.
Example: Killing Hessians or Molly's will anger them but impress the Corsairs.
However, this doesn't always seem to work correctly.
After blasting Molly's for over an hour, the Corsairs still didn't have any improvement in standing.
Also, killing Nomads (which is now super easy) is meant to impress EVERYONE except them, but it doesn't seem to.
7, NPC's are suddenly dumb...?
Apart from the fact that they completely ignore you, NPC's suddenly seem dumber.
On several occasions, I have seen Rogues and Outcasts "attacking" Trade Lanes.
Attacking is an overstatement, they shoot directly between the two lane circles until one has the bright idea to drop a Mine in the middle. Then they just fly around in little circles until it comes online again before doing exactly the same thing.
While fun to watch, it kinda takes you out of the game world.
On the odd occasion that one of these "attacks" causes other ships to enter the area, a small but very fast fight ensues.
Usually resulting in a landslide victory for one side or the other.
If the bad guys win, they go back to "attacking" the Trade Lane or fly off in a random direction until they die somehow.
8, Particularly large ships are somewhat annoying.
I often see the larger ships FAIL to enter Trade Lanes. Sometimes resulting in them BLOCKING said Trade Lane.
I have therefore had to bypass that initial Trade Lane for its next section due to the fact that I cannot actually Dock with the first part of the Lane. I once found myself "stuck" against one of these large ships for 5 minutes while attempting to Dock with the Lane, until somehow it managed to dislodge itself..
While none of these issues are particularly problematic, they don't seem to have occurred in earlier versions of Discovery that I have played. Most of them seem relatively new. Perhaps these can be worked on in some way?
"He who controls the past commands the future, He who commands the future, conquers the past."
- Kane, Brotherhood Of NOD.
(07-26-2024, 01:57 AM)Diablo666Daemon666 Wrote: Word Wall
As a newer player, I might as well give some comments on this.
1. I like to say the starting ship is pretty decent and even with little money NPC's are pretty easy to beat as long as you're playing well.
2. I never really do the low-level missions so I can't comment on this.
3. I can agree on this point iv yet to see one that I can be bothered with.
4. Player-to-player to me is iffy, I see some of it being good other times it's people driving up to you after fighting them and they just blow you up without lines.
5. The ID rules are hella simple to see and use IMO, most of the time its just reading and knowing what your ID does and how you interact with others, mostly just who you need to attack, and who to say hi to.
6. I haven't seen this problem really when doing missions, my stands shift and everything so can't comment here.
7. "C, NPC farming is difficult as all Navy enemies simply ignored me, which is also good as they are overpowered.", "7, NPC's are suddenly dumb...?" If the NPCs are dumb how are you having problems fighting them... I just take a Fighter or heavy Fighter and do some missions and they give me a small fight that is fun, I think this sounds like a skill gap between you and the NPC.
8. I can agree with this even today doing a trade run we hit 2 ships stuck in the trade lane forcing us to go around, it's not much but it's very annoying every time you run into it.
By NPC farming, I meant random encounters not missions.
They totally ignore you, fly very erratically and are a pain to hunt down and kill before opposing NPCs show up and steal the kill.
NPC's being dumb was mainly about the "attacking" Trade Lane issues.
I see this very often. Its funny, but also stupid, and I NEVER saw this before the current Discovery.
"A small fight" in the missions? Skill level isn't the problem when you are a Starflyer sent against 6-8 ships that can blow you to bits in less than 2 seconds. And getting those 6-8 Gunboats on a supposed "low-level" mission was RIDICULOUS!
Regardless of how good a person thinks they are in a battle, 1 Light Fighter vs 6-8 Heavy Fighters or Gunboats is not ending well.
"He who controls the past commands the future, He who commands the future, conquers the past."
- Kane, Brotherhood Of NOD.
(07-26-2024, 01:57 AM)Diablo666Daemon666 Wrote: 1, The current setup of the game may discourage new players.
You start in a relatively crap ship, with little money, and no real legit way of making any. Now this is just plain wrong. You start with fully loaded freighter with a mining array. You can rack up money very quickly with mining, which costs nothing.
2, There seem to be no low-level missions anymore.
I found the lowest to be "level 3", available on Planet Manhattan. Missions are tough but pay well. Valley Forge in Pennsylvania gives you the lowest rank missions. I don't play snubs, so I can't comment on that experience. Try Encounters or Battlezones maybe, or save youself some money to buy a gunboat to grind these low rank missions.
3, Wrecks/Loot hunting is now pointless There are definitely some wrecks that are worth your time and effort. The one you picked isn't.
4, Player interactions have gone a tad downhill.
Its very hard to Role-Play on a Role-Play server when others aren't really doing the same. Report them.
I have had several "interactions" with people playing as criminal factions who just shoot randomly at you for no reason. Report them.
These people also have much better ships/weapons/shields so you are no match for them. That is relative. Guns and ships have both qualities and defects. I don't know what do you mean by this.
What happened to the InRP rules for PvP combat? Am I really allowed to just randomly blast whoever I want, whenever I want? No. Report them.
5, Rule-breaking is confusing.
I have been told once or twice by other players that "X is against the rules for my character", despite the fact that they also break rules themselves. Report them.
Not only this, but the GAME rules also seem to have changed. Yeah, for the better.
Why can't a Freelancer (clue in the name) basically fly ANY ship they want? Freelancers can fly most ships in the game but can't fly faction ships, they also can't fly heavier capitals for an obvious reasons.
My Freelancer character got a lovely Corsair ship, with Corsair weapons, only to have his ship power nerfed due to "incompatibility" or something...? A Freelancer is a Freelancer, he should be able to fly ANYTHING. This happens for a good reason. If Freelancers could fly any ship they want, no one would ever fly the actual factions. You like a certain ship, fly that faction.
6, Faction standing issues
I understand that when you kill one factions members, it angers them and pleases others.
Example: Killing Hessians or Molly's will anger them but impress the Corsairs.
However, this doesn't always seem to work correctly.
After blasting Molly's for over an hour, the Corsairs still didn't have any improvement in standing. I believe it is a feature to avoid you easily gaining too much faction reputation.
Also, killing Nomads (which is now super easy) is meant to impress EVERYONE except them, but it doesn't seem to. This feature ("Empathy") has been nerfed in Discovery for being particularly overpowered.
7, NPC's are suddenly dumb...?
Apart from the fact that they completely ignore you, NPC's suddenly seem dumber.
On several occasions, I have seen Rogues and Outcasts "attacking" Trade Lanes.
Attacking is an overstatement, they shoot directly between the two lane circles until one has the bright idea to drop a Mine in the middle. Then they just fly around in little circles until it comes online again before doing exactly the same thing.
While fun to watch, it kinda takes you out of the game world.
On the odd occasion that one of these "attacks" causes other ships to enter the area, a small but very fast fight ensues.
Usually resulting in a landslide victory for one side or the other.
If the bad guys win, they go back to "attacking" the Trade Lane or fly off in a random direction until they die somehow. Dumb "Ambient" NPCs are a feature and are working correctly. They're supposed to just exist and shoot other NPCs/Stations. They're not meant to attack the player or be deadly in combat.
8, Particularly large ships are somewhat annoying.
I often see the larger ships FAIL to enter Trade Lanes. Sometimes resulting in them BLOCKING said Trade Lane.
I have therefore had to bypass that initial Trade Lane for its next section due to the fact that I cannot actually Dock with the first part of the Lane. I once found myself "stuck" against one of these large ships for 5 minutes while attempting to Dock with the Lane, until somehow it managed to dislodge itself. Yes, that can happen. Just go to the next lane or ram your way into the lane. If you're hostile to the NPC, just shoot them.
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Thank you for the feedback. If any other new player is reading this, I encourage you to use the opportunity to share your feedback, as the new player experience is something we need to improve, and it's often difficult to get it since new players don't use the forums too often.
Regarding the original post: Many of these points stem from a lack of tutorials that would show how to find or solve the issues presented. New players are thrown into the game with minimal guidance, which is why one of our plans is to create several tutorials specifically aimed at new players to increase player retention. For example, if there were a video titled "First 5 Hours - A New Player Guide" starting you from Erie and guiding you through acquiring your first ships and credits, showing you how to mine, trade, and fight NPCs, it would significantly boost the appeal for new or returning players compared to having no such video.
Addressing your points:
1. Lack of a video PvP tutorial for freighters or a mining video tutorial showing you how to mine in a freighter. I can offer you this video from 2016 regarding the former, and teaching capital ship combat in general, although an updated 2024 version will be coming in the following months. As for earning credits, one of the best ways to do so at the moment is to purchase a Hegemon on Harrisburg Station, which will allow you to mine and trade your first big credits.
2. Starter missions are available on Valley Forge in front of Erie in Pennsylvania. This can also be communicated more clearly via a tutorial, and we should add more beginner-friendly missions across the board. Missions in general are quite limiting to work with because of the code they are written in; unfortunately, we cannot do much about that part.
3. Most wrecks are there for lore or story purposes, and the loot is meant to reflect that story, which often means it won't have high value. Wrecks with high-value loot are the exception, not the norm. There are plenty of wrecks with high-value cargo, such as codename weapons, but it's a matter of experience to know where to find them. You can certainly equip your ship with top-tier guns from wreck hunting and earn cash on the player market. This is a good thing; you don't want all wrecks to be valuable, as that would reduce the value of each individual wreck, especially those meant to be rare and difficult to find.
4. Unfortunately, what you experienced will happen, but I encourage you to believe it's not the norm. This is a subjective topic and can vary a lot with a small sample size. We're all in the same boat, on the same server, with no matchmaking. Some people are desperate for PvP and might not realize they are engaging a new player before they pull the trigger.
5. The only limitations regarding server rules and ship usage are if the ID does not allow a certain class to be flown. For example, a Freelancer ID flying a 5000 cargo ship such as a Stork, or a Corsair Battlecruiser, is rule-breaking. Your Freelancer ID character can fly a Corsair fighter with Corsair guns, which is not breaking any server rules. However, it will be difficult to fight in one due to power core limitations. The reason for this is simple: we want to encourage players to play local factions who are meant to use that technology. Factions in Freelancer are quite protective of their technology, but that shouldn't stop you from trying if you really want a Corsair ship. All it would take is to document some roleplay explaining why the Corsairs would trust your Freelancer with their technology. Ideally, you would do this by interacting with a Corsair member in-game. After that, you request the tech exemption for the ship in question, and you will have 100% power core regeneration on your Freelancer ID Corsair ship. In short, you need to earn the trust of the Corsairs in roleplay before you can use their ship. Otherwise, what's stopping you from using their technology to actively shoot Corsairs?
6. This is mostly a relic of the past when repping via NPCs was reduced. It's something we, developers, need to improve. Bribes are the go-to way of fixing rep nowadays, along with the /resetrep command, which will erase your reputation sheet to the default reputation sheet of your ID for 100k credits. Keep in mind that if you use an ID such as the Liberty Navy, even if you bribe the Xenos, once you undock, they will turn red again. This is because they are inherent enemies in lore, and a simple bribe won't fix that. Xenos are hostile to Liberty Navy regardless of how many Junker NPCs you shoot to try and get Xenos to turn neutral.
7. Freelancer NPC AI is a topic of its own. In short, it is outdated and silly in a lot of scenarios. I remember them shooting tradelanes and stations many years ago; it's not a new thing. The vast majority of NPCs you see when randomly flying around, also known as Ambient NPCs, are there for immersion and roleplay fluff. They ignore players because they would ruin PvP for fighter/snub players only, while capital ship players would ignore them. This would highly discourage players from playing snubs.
8. This will be automatically fixed in an upcoming transport rework. Large ships get stuck primarily because of low mass. If you happen to be stuck in a tradelane, type "/stuck" to automatically align yourself with the center of the lane.
1) Your starting ship is for mining and trading, or maybe farming random NPCs underway (Rogue, Xeno, Outcast pilots plus bounties are really good and manageable with a Kestrel), but you can start in a fighter if you use another character and the /restart and /showrestarts option.
2) 100%, especially after the 5.0 update missions are way too hard, either in a fighter, gunboat or capship. Especially for newbies.
3) Yes, that these vanilla guns are still findable in wrecks is an abomination.
4) Never occurred to me, actually, Most players that play unlawfuls however don't express any humor or self-irony.
5) Yes, the vanilla ability to freely combine everything is definitely better.
6) Some faction standings are hardcoded into IDs no matter what you kill or bribe, and the "Nomad kills please everyone" has never been there, not even in vanilla, but was a separate mod from the early 2000s. Might even still be included in the Mod Manager... While this would be pretty convenient, it would be lore-breaking, like how would some Liberty Rogue know or why would he care about your bravery in the omicron systems?
I started in a STARFLYER, with no cargo and little money.
I do NOT start in a "Freighter with a full cargo".
"Buy a Gunboat"
How would I have the money for that first...?
The Wreck I picked SHOULD be worth my time and effort.
They ALL should. That was the WHOLE POINT of going to find them.
In the base game, I ALWAYS went for those New York wrecks after the first mission.
The Justice Mk III's were VERY helpful until I got something like Drail's...
With regard to superior weapons/ships...etc.
I mean they have been playing longer, they have much better tech than you have as a starting player.
A Bomber, with a great shield and better weapons...you are no match for in the starting Starflyer.
Freelancers, BY DESIGN of the game, should be able to fly ANYTHING!
Look at the base game, you start in a Starflyer, but with a little effort can get an Order Anubis or a Corsair heavy fighter ship.
A Freelancer is a Freelancer, he is not PART of a Faction, but he should be able to use their ships if he is allied enough with them.
Also, for the last point of that, what if I want to go ANYWHERE (as a Freelancer can) but in ANY SHIP I want...?
Factions have certain ZOI's, Freelancers DON'T.
The Nomad issue. So, this was nerfed...?
A part of the game that is FUNDAMENTAL to how it is meant to work, has been nerfed?
Yeah, that sounds like a brilliant idea.
Why not just delete Bretonia? Remove the...Molly's? Make any changes you want to a game you never made?
Hostile NPC factions in Freelancer are MEANT to attack you. This is the issue I am pointing out.
I used to LOVE being engaged by a couple of Rogues when I'm travelling around Liberty space...
Also, the "dumb" part was mainly due to how they "attack" Trade Lanes...
For the last point, your solution is only addressing the SYMPTOM, not the issue.
Those ships shouldn't even BE THERE in the first place!
Why is a Ship (larger than a Battleship) trying to run through a Trade Lane in the first place...?
They were NEVER doing that before. This problem was CREATED and should be addressed by the devs, not the players!
"He who controls the past commands the future, He who commands the future, conquers the past."
- Kane, Brotherhood Of NOD.
Antonio, everything you have said is very helpful.
I mean that too.
But, as you said, many new players will not come to this forum first.
Obviously, the points I made COULD affect their initial enjoyment of the game, and make them NOT want to continue playing.
The PvP thing is not just that a better player may kill you, its that they fire without warning.
I was killed by a "Criminal" in a far superior ship, but with NO real warning.
Point 7 is interesting.
What you said is contradictory to game experience.
You are deciding to make Freelancer a PvP ONLY game, which it is NOT.
The PvP can ENHANCE the experience, but it should not come at the detriment of regular gameplay.
There are not always "enemy" players to fight, and you may not always WANT to go find them.
Therefore, we NEED the ability to fight NPC's for immersion.
As a Liberty Navy player, for instance, if there are no player "Criminals" I would need to fight OTHER criminals associated with those Factions...otherwise, I am not REALLY a Liberty Navy Officer for RP purposes.
Aligning with the "centre" of the Trade Lane IS the issue.
These ships sometimes BLOCK the centre.
"He who controls the past commands the future, He who commands the future, conquers the past."
- Kane, Brotherhood Of NOD.
Are you actually playing in MP? Multiplayer you start with kestrel freighter which is great for making starter cash. I feel you played singleplayer which is sandbox with several 'cheat' commands - it only serves to test the ships you want to fly.
Flying SP you also lack many features of Discovery since they are ran server-side.
Yes Discovery is multiplayer-oriented mod.
Thank you for addressing my points, and in most cases agreeing.
My worry is NEW players, they will find this "new" game incredibly difficult.
Unless they are like me, and difficulty makes them determined, they will simply quit and go to another game.
The Freelancer community has already dwindled to the point where I see only 10-15 players online, and all are so far away in other systems that I can't get to them.
We need to ENCOURAGE new players, not make the game impossibly hard to start.
Thank you for agreeing about the Wrecks too!
Hitting the ones in the Badlands were always a starting point for me and helped greatly in the main story and side missions, and in whatever version of the game it was I would get the Chaingun Wildfires from Alaska...
The game has changed to be too much about PvP, for which there aren't enough players and some don't follow RP rules, and less about the very NATURE of the game itself.
Yes, I want to fight other players, even in an RP way, but I also want to explore and do all the things you are meant to be able to do in the game normally.
It seems that the PvP aspect has been increased, which is good, but at a massive detriment to all other gameplay aspects.
There's no reason to explore, to do missions, to do ANYTHING except in the pursuit of money for a better ship and equipment for PvP encounters.
I see this as a MASSIVE step back from what Freelancer is.
Plus, still to this day, the single-player campaign doesn't work. So it's online or NOTHING really.
"He who controls the past commands the future, He who commands the future, conquers the past."
- Kane, Brotherhood Of NOD.
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